by Hilary Green
Steadily, the grey-clad figures advanced until they were less than a hundred yards from the canal bank. Then a voice rang out, ‘Fire!’ and all along the trenches heads appeared, rifles were aimed and bullets tore into the massed ranks of the enemy. So rapidly were the shots repeated that the sound was continuous and the German soldiers fell like wheat before the harvester. Watching, Tom remembered that Ralph had told him that it was the pride of the infantry that they could fire fifteen aimed rounds per minute. For all his hatred of war, he found himself cheering as the German ranks wavered and then fell back. His cheer was echoed along the thin line of the trenches.
The sun rose higher and Tom began to sweat in the confined space of the cabin but the battle continued to rage below him and the crane shuddered with the impact of the German shells on the ground below. The German infantry made two further attempts to advance, but each time they were driven back, leaving the ground beyond the canal strewn with bodies. Tom worked feverishly, filling page after page with sketches. Then, looking to the west, he saw movement. Small groups of men were retreating towards him, each in turn providing covering fire while the others withdrew through them. With a sickening lurch in his stomach Tom realized that the enemy had succeeded in crossing the canal by one of the bridges. Below him, other groups were moving, slipping back towards the slag heaps and the buildings of the mining villages. It was time to leave his vantage point. With cramped and shaking limbs, he began the long climb down to the ground.
At ground level the cacophony of the bombardment was more deafening than before. At the whistle of an approaching shell he threw himself face down and felt the ground heave. Soil thrown up by the explosion pattered down on to his back. He scrambled up and, keeping low, scuttled in the direction of the mine buildings until he encountered a platoon of Coldstream Guards.
‘I’m looking for Lieutenant Malham Brown,’ Tom said. ‘Do you know where he is?’
‘Back there, sir,’ the corporal said, nodding towards a long, low building. ‘Casualty clearing station.’
Tom’s stomach churned again. Somehow he had convinced himself that in the midst of all this desolation he would find Ralph unharmed. He turned and stumbled towards the building. It was a disused factory and Tom entered a huge, echoing room, empty except for lines of wounded men lying on the floor. There was no sign of any doctors or orderlies, and the prospect of trawling the lines in search of Ralph was too daunting, so he picked his way across to a doorway leading into a second room. This one, too, was full of wounded but there was more activity. Two doctors were at work at trestle tables on the far side and several orderlies with Red Cross armbands were bustling about with trays of dressings.
Tom waylaid the nearest one. ‘Lieutenant Malham Brown? Is he here?’
‘Over there, sir.’ The man indicated with a jerk of his chin and Tom turned to see Ralph crouched beside a prone figure.
Ralph looked up as he approached and for a moment his eyes were blank, as if he did not recognize his friend. Then he said, ‘Ah, Tom. You’re still in one piece then,’ in a flat tone that expressed neither surprise nor relief. His face was smeared with coal dust and spent powder but beneath the filth he was chalk white.
‘And you?’ Tom said breathlessly. ‘You’re not hurt?’
‘Me? No, no I’m all right. Just checking on the lads, like this one.’
He looked down at the still figure on the stretcher and Tom saw that it was a boy who looked hardly old enough to enlist. One sleeve of his tunic was ripped and a rough bandage had been applied, which was already dark with blood. Ralph put his hand on the boy’s other shoulder and pressed it gently. ‘Hang on, old chap. The medics will be with you soon.’
‘Don’t worry about me, sir,’ the boy whispered. ‘I’ll be OK. There’s others worse off than me.’
Ralph straightened up and looked about him with the same blank, lost look and Tom said quietly, ‘Is there anything I can do?’
‘I need to get back,’ Ralph said. ‘We’re withdrawing to the second line of defence. Stay here, will you, and help out?’
‘Of course,’ Tom agreed. ‘If there’s anything useful I can do.’
Ralph started to move towards the door, then he stopped and looked round the room. ‘There are so many,’ he murmured, as if to himself, ‘so many . . .’ Tom wondered if he meant the Germans or the casualties, but before he could frame the question Ralph shook himself like a dog and left the room.
Tom located one of the doctors, who was bending over a man who was clutching his belly and sobbing. ‘Is there anything I can do, Doctor? I’ve no medical or first aid training but I’m willing to help in any way I can.’
The doctor looked up. ‘Are you familiar with the concept of triage?’
‘Yes, I think so,’ Tom responded, recalling what he had learned from Leo outside Adrianople.
‘Casualties are divided into three categories. The first – those that need immediate treatment if they are to survive; the second – those whose wounds are less serious and can wait for a while; and the third – those whose condition is beyond our help. In that room out there are the men who fall into the third category. If you really want to help you can go round them and note down names and numbers, so we can inform next of kin.’
He turned back to his work and Tom moved away towards the door. He felt sick, but he knew that to protest would be to brand himself as worse than useless. In the outer room two army chaplains were now at work. Tom’s offer of help was accepted with relief and for the next hour he went from stretcher to stretcher. Soon the pages of his sketch pad were covered, not with drawings, but with names and numbers and units. Many of the men were beyond speech and he had to grope for dog tags to get the necessary information. Some of them asked when the doctors would attend to them, others knew that they were beyond help and begged Tom to write down farewell messages to loved ones. Many begged for water and Tom refilled his canteen again and again, raising their heads and holding it to their parched lips. Some asked him to pray with them. Tom had lost his faith many years earlier, but the familiar words of the Lord’s Prayer came easily and the dying men seemed to find comfort in them. Others simply wanted him to hold their hands and more than once he felt the grip go suddenly slack and saw the eyes glaze over. When one of the chaplains laid a hand on his shoulder and said gently, ‘There’s nothing more you can do here. Thank you for your help,’ he staggered out into the sunshine and sank down on a pile of bricks, oblivious to the noise of the battle going on behind him.
When he dragged himself to his feet he saw that the day was almost over and a bank of clouds had built up in the western sky: black clouds in strange, irregular formations, tinged luridly red at the edges by the setting sun. To Tom’s overwrought imagination they looked like winged creatures. Angels of death, he thought. I hope they are coming for the Boche!
He found Ralph with his company. They had taken up a position behind a broken wall and were preparing for another German attack.
‘For God’s sake, Ralph,’ he begged, ‘give me a rifle. I can’t stand by and watch without doing anything.’
Ralph looked at him and Tom was relieved to see that the blank gaze had been replaced by a look of grim determination. ‘You’ve never fired a rifle, have you?’
‘No, but I’ve used a shotgun. It can’t be so different.’
Ralph turned to a soldier nearby. ‘Give this officer a rifle. There must be spares that belonged to one of our casualties.’
Tom was handed a gun and Ralph gave him brief instructions on how to load and fire it. ‘If they come at us en masse like they did before, you might at least take one or two out before they overrun us,’ he said grimly.
At that moment somebody said, ‘Listen!’ and in the sudden quiet they realized the guns had fallen silent and from the far side of the canal a bugle sounded.
‘That’s the cease fire!’ Ralph said, incredulously. ‘One more push and they would have had us on toast, and they’ve decided to pack up for the n
ight. Praise God!’
The sentiment was echoed all along the line and the order went round to stand down. Before long Tom found himself squatting by a campfire, eating bully beef and drinking tea strong enough to tan leather. He watched as Ralph made his rounds, setting sentries and joking with the men. He had never seen him in action as an officer before and it was clear that he was very good at his job, but Tom knew the real Ralph, underneath the uniform. Only he could guess what it had cost him to throw off the numbness of shock that had gripped him in the casualty station. At length, Ralph came and sat beside him and offered him a swig of brandy from his flask.
‘Rotten job I gave you back there.’ He nodded towards the disused factory. ‘You all right?’
‘Just about,’ Tom said. ‘I was glad to do something vaguely useful, after sitting up in that ivory tower all day.’
‘Were you able to make some useful sketches?’
‘I don’t know. I was too busy to think about it.’ Tom reached for his pad and flipped the pages.
Ralph took it from him. ‘Bloody hell, Tom! You could see all this? Down here at ground level we only knew what was right in front of us – but an overview like this . . . It could be immensely useful in planning future tactics. You’d better show these to the CO when you get a chance.’
It was too late to pursue the idea further and before long Tom rolled himself in his greatcoat and fell into an exhausted sleep. It seemed he had hardly dropped off before his batman was shaking him awake.
‘Get up, sir! We’re withdrawing. Orders have just come round.’
Tom blinked at him. ‘Withdrawing? You mean retreating? Why?’
‘Sorry, sir. That’s just what I’ve been told. Lieutenant Malham Brown says he’ll meet you at the horse lines.’
Stiff and chilled, Tom scrambled to his feet. The batman collected his belongings and followed as Tom plodded towards the area behind the lines where the horses were tethered. Ralph was already there, preparing to mount.
‘What’s happening?’ Tom asked. ‘Why are we pulling back?’
‘Ours not to reason why, old chap,’ Ralph responded. ‘Buck up and get mounted.’
Dawn was breaking and as they moved out on to the road Tom saw that it was already crowded with men. They were not formed up in marching order, as they had been when they arrived, but were in small groups with men from different units mixed together. There was no sense of panic, in fact it was eerily quiet, a stream of ghostly shapes in the grey morning light.
‘I don’t understand,’ Tom said. ‘Have we been defeated? I thought we had held them back.’
Ralph looked at him with a hint of his old insouciant grin. ‘Strategic withdrawal. The BEF is going to quietly melt away. If the Boche knew we were withdrawing they’d be after us like a pack of hounds, but this way, by the time they wake up to the fact, we shall be over the hills and far away.’
‘Was it necessary?’ Tom asked.
‘The Germans were across the canal on both sides of us. If we’d stayed we should have been outflanked and surrounded. We have to find a better defensive position.’
At that moment gunfire broke out behind them and Tom looked at Ralph in alarm.
‘Have they spotted what we’re doing?’
‘No, that’s our own artillery. Those poor blighters have been told to stay and cover our retreat. They’ll be lucky to get the guns away before the Boche overrun them.’
Tom scanned the line of men ahead of him. ‘I can see some of our chaps, but they’re all mixed up with men from other regiments.’
‘We’ll gather them together when we stop. Right now what matters is to put as much distance between us and the Boche as possible.’
As they rode on Tom felt sorry for the foot soldiers. On the march out he had been uncomfortable because, as an officer, he was mounted while they walked, but now the discrepancy was magnified. The men had fought all day, and they each carried a heavy pack as well as their rifles and he saw that some of them were already limping. Many wore bandages on heads or arms and some had to be helped along by colleagues. But in general they did not appear to be downhearted and he heard several asking Ralph why they had been ordered to withdraw.
‘We was on top of them, sir,’ one said. ‘We ought to be going after the buggers, not running away.’
‘We’re not running away,’ Ralph assured him. ‘When we reach a better position we shall turn round and let them run straight into our trap.’
As they reached the outskirts of the town of Mons, Tom saw a sight that reminded him with a jolt of Serbia. The road here was crowded with refugees, mingling with the troops. They pushed handcarts and perambulators piled high with everything they could carry. Women carried babies on their backs and led small children by the hand. A young girl carried a birdcage in which a canary was singing, undisturbed by the tumult around it, and behind her a youth pushed an old man with a long white beard in a wheelbarrow. Some of them struck off across the fields, heading for some refuge unknown to the English soldiers, others plodded on, adding to the congestion and slowing down the retreat.
All day they trudged along the straight, tree-lined road with its unforgiving cobbles. Unlike the previous day, which had begun cool and damp, the sun shone from a cloudless sky and Tom saw more than one man cast aside his heavy greatcoat, careless of how he would cover himself when night came. The ration cart threaded its way through the crowd, handing out tins of bully beef and hunks of bread. The men opened the tins and shared them out and ate while they marched. One young lad dropped out of the ranks and sank down on the side of the road. Ralph rode up to him and shouted, ‘On your feet. You can’t stop here. Do you want to be taken prisoner?’
‘It’s me feet, sir,’ the boy whimpered. ‘It’s these boots. Me feet’s bleeding.’
‘You’ve got to keep going just the same,’ Ralph told him. ‘Up you get. That’s an order!’
As the boy hauled himself upright Tom said quietly, ‘I could give him my horse. My boots are better than his for walking.’
‘Don’t be a fool!’ Ralph replied in an undertone. ‘Do you think he’s the only one? You can’t give up your horse to all of them. You’re an officer now. Behave like one!’
From time to time they heard outbreaks of firing behind them and once they saw a cavalry regiment cantering through the fields alongside the road in the direction of the enemy. It was clear that the Germans were in hot pursuit and only being held back by a determined rearguard action. Dusk came, with some relief from the heat if nothing else, and still they marched. Finally, when it was fully dark, the order was given to halt and fall out and the men stumbled into the fields and dropped to the ground. Tom slid off his horse and handed the reins to his batman. He felt almost as exhausted as the men and wrapping his greatcoat around him he prepared to lie down. Then he saw that Ralph was still on his feet, moving around among the men, exchanging banter and murmuring words of encouragement. He wondered if he should join him, but he was a newcomer, not a regular soldier, and he knew he did not have the rapport with the men that Ralph had. So he sat and waited until eventually his friend came back and sank down beside him.
‘So this is war,’ Ralph grunted. ‘Not quite the way I imagined it.’
‘I did try to warn you, after what I saw in Serbia,’ Tom replied.
‘I know,’ Ralph said. ‘But then I assumed that – well, that it was a civilian’s view of things. I’m beginning to understand now.’
Tom shook his head sadly. ‘This is only the start. I’m afraid, like the Yanks say, You ain’t seen nothing yet!’
‘Spare me the details,’ Ralph muttered. He pulled his coat over his head and was asleep almost at once.
They were on the move soon after dawn next morning and late that evening they entered the village of Le Cateau. A halt was called as they reached the village square and Ralph was summoned to a briefing with the senior officers. The men dropped to the ground where they were, leaning against each other or any surface that came to h
and, some of them already asleep. Tom was muzzy-headed from lack of sleep and his eyes stung with dust and sweat, but he took out his sketch pad and began to draw the faces of the soldiers around him: streaked with dirt, gaunt with hunger and exhaustion, but still amazingly indomitable in their expressions.
Ralph returned after a short interval. ‘Thank God! We’re to stop here and dig in. Our orders are to hold the Boche back as long as possible.’
‘That’s asking a lot,’ Tom said. ‘The men are exhausted. They fought all day at Mons, they’ve had very little sleep and now they’ve marched the best part of thirty miles.’
‘Exactly,’ Ralph said. ‘They can’t walk any further, but they can lie in a field and fire their rifles.’
A group of senior officers entered the square and Tom recognized General Smith-Dorrien. The men struggled wearily to their feet and the general mounted the church steps to address them.
‘Men, this is where we stop retreating and make a stand. Our job is to hold the enemy back so that the rest of our forces have time to regroup. You held them off at Mons. I know I can rely on you to do the same here.’
Tom felt a lump rise in his throat at the ragged cheer that greeted his words.
Ralph’s company was deployed in a cornfield just beyond the village, with other units to left and right of it. The men got out their entrenching tools and dug shallow pits, as they had done at Mons. Tom scraped a hole for himself behind a stook of corn and unslung the rifle Ralph had given him. He knew he could not match the expertise of the infantrymen around him and he found it hard to imagine that he could attempt to take the life of a fellow human being in cold blood, but he was determined to share the danger and hoped to play some part in the action instead of being an observer. Ralph, having toured the lines, checking and encouraging, came to join him.
‘Now what?’ Tom asked.
‘Now we wait,’ was the reply.
The brief hours of darkness passed and then with the dawn they heard the sound of conflict from the other side of the village and a detachment of Uhlans, the German cavalry, were seen galloping away. Soon after that the artillery, most of whom had succeeded in withdrawing with their guns from Mons, opened up and the German guns replied. The bombardment went on until midday, tearing great craters in the level ground and wreaking heavy casualties. Tom saw the shallow foxholes on either side of him disintegrate into flying clods of earth, in which were mingled the remains of weapons, shreds of clothing and dismembered body parts. Then the guns fell silent and the grey-uniformed ranks of the German infantry advanced. Incredibly, to Tom, they still came on in solid blocks, presenting a target even he could not miss. Even more incredibly, as at Mons, from what appeared a scene of lifeless devastation, a scorching rain of bullets erupted. Working the bolts of their rifles until the barrels were red hot, the British Tommies poured a withering fire into the massed ranks and soon the field in front of them was strewn with bodies. But still they came on, the numbers apparently inexhaustible, tramping over their dead comrades and advancing ever closer.